One massive ship? Two Ships? Or Ship and factory?

[Musical Jacob]

Hello, everyone!

Are you rocking one ship, multiple ships, or a ship and factory? And Why?

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I'm lvl 5 in the career so far, and have been limited severely by crew size. I imagine it will be a constant struggle to find enough crew to fulfill my dreams of an efficient mega ship! Until I raise my fame at least....

SO, i'm looking to see how many of you rock builds beyond one ship, and how viable it is. The problem I have is that factories make my ship too large to protect at my level.

Care to help? Here's what I'm thinking so far.

Total crew: 60(can be raised with a higher rank of course)

Option 1: One ship. Just bite the bullet and have everything in one hull. Fight the constant struggle to ascetically design beyond a borg cube or tube ship.

Option 2: Two ships focused on salvage. Keep factories to ammo production only. Ships designed to maximize flanking. Almost no mining.

Option 3: A jack of all trades ship with only ammo productions that is much more durable, fast and armed compared to option 1. Keep factories on ship to ammo production only.
And THEN a SEPERATE factory ship with a skeleton crew. The factory ship camps at a station. No defense needed. Lots of hyperjumping and 8x speed travel time!

Thoughts?

[Draken]

I did option 1.
Here is the ship: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880726827
Recommended crew level was 90, but I started lower, in the 60ths, and slowly added more crew as I got the fame.

All the damage comes from the Ion Beams and the prisms are designed to cover all the blind spots. I got a pair of missle launchers in the back. I switched them to EMP missles as the high explosives had a tendency to completely blow up enemies. And I read that that decreases the salvage. If I need more storage I just slap a few more storage spaces unto the back.

[Windu190]

I currently have a very large factory ship, 2 mining vessels, 2 large freighters and 3 combat vessels.

The factory ship and freighters are always parked at a station for protection and to hire crew from the ships that pass by (whenever I can afford it). The mining vessels are constantly flying around the asteroid fields/belt for resources, which they drop off at the factory ship (the 3 combat vessels escort them). Once the resources are refined they are transferred to my freighters, then used to build more ships.

I'll have to point out though, I play with reputation requirements off, so hiring crew is easier for me.

[Gunman]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880776067

Until they add some sort of AI for the player, ability to make a faction.
asuming thats not in already i asume not.
A single big ship seems the best deal. atleast for early game.
Maby later on you could have multiple scout ships going in when you dont want your main ship getting shot by railgun penetration.

[TheOrigin]

I tried a small fleet, but multitasking several ships in combat is tedious. You also have to share your crew amongst all your ships, which means you miss some crew on your main ship.

So i went back to one massive battleship. Here is what i am using right now: Big railgun with heavy laser support and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of point defenses.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880775736
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880775750
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880775764

It has 315 crew and is worth about 1,5 million. Currently playing around level 10-12.
Railguns have a range of 300m and 10k damage per shot.

[Musical Jacob]

Originally posted by Windu190:

I currently have a very large factory ship, 2 mining vessels, 2 large freighters and 3 combat vessels.

The factory ship and freighters are always parked at a station for protection and to hire crew from the ships that pass by (whenever I can afford it). The mining vessels are constantly flying around the asteroid fields/belt for resources, which they drop off at the factory ship (the 3 combat vessels escort them). Once the resources are refined they are transferred to my freighters, then used to build more ships.

I'll have to point out though, I play with reputation requirements off, so hiring crew is easier for me.

Do you find the micro manageable?

[KungFury]

I have 3 medium/large sized ships. but lacking some crew to make them work optimal.

A Battle Cruiser, heavy Frigate and a Mining Barge that can also produce steel, tri-steel and copper.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880778321

[Musical Jacob]

Originally posted by KungFury:

I have 3 medium/large sized ships. but lacking some crew to make them work optimal.

A Battle Cruiser, heavy Frigate and a Mining Barge that can also produce steel, tri-steel and copper.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880778321

Love it!
Do you just kinda hop between whatever actions you need/sound fun?
Aka mine for an hour till you get bored and military is idle... then "pew pew" some pirates for the next hour....

[KungFury]

Thank you :). I like them too. I tried to make them look like space ships xD.

It completely depends on the situation how I play. Often I let the mining vessel mine and produce the goods while it is guarded by the Frigate. I am then controlling the cruiser and doing some missions. But sometimes I use all three ships when there is no mining running or if the missions are too difficult for the cruiser alone.

I think in the next system I cant fight a lot solo because of the difficulty level. I am still in the second system and I fear thet it will become much harder in the next one ^^.

[Windu190]

Originally posted by Musical Jacob:

Originally posted by Windu190:

I currently have a very large factory ship, 2 mining vessels, 2 large freighters and 3 combat vessels.

The factory ship and freighters are always parked at a station for protection and to hire crew from the ships that pass by (whenever I can afford it). The mining vessels are constantly flying around the asteroid fields/belt for resources, which they drop off at the factory ship (the 3 combat vessels escort them). Once the resources are refined they are transferred to my freighters, then used to build more ships.

I'll have to point out though, I play with reputation requirements off, so hiring crew is easier for me.

Do you find the micro manageable?

I'm managing it reasonably well. The freighters and factory ship are always parked at a station so I never really have to worry about them. The only ships I have to constantly control are the combat and mining ships.

I'm thinking about replacing those 5 ships, and just make one really big mining ship with lots of defenses, it would certainly make mining easier, I just have to come up with a decent design first.

[WillieSea]

I blasted the control rooms on the first pirate base station and took it over almost complete. It now serves as my permanent storage and manufacturing hub. Of course I have made it much bigger than it originally was. My Mining ship is pretty big too, but it is made for speed and battle along with all the storage.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880665139

[Plavonica]

So far I have a somewhat large ship to do most things. When I need storage I just buld it on the back end.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880883350

Once I get enough saved up I plan on deploying this and working on it as a fleet support ship. That way I can remove some of the stuff from the main combat ship.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880883957

[Draken]

Originally posted by Plavonica:

So far I have a somewhat large ship to do most things. When I need storage I just buld it on the back end.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880883350

Once I get enough saved up I plan on deploying this and working on it as a fleet support ship. That way I can remove some of the stuff from the main combat ship.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880883957

Interesting looking ship. I do have a question though: Why three prisms? Shouldn't two be enough?

[Katitoff]

Whatever is more fun to you.

I'm using one massive 40k themed factory/combat ship(demiurg stronghold) for my first playtrough, for my 2nd one I'll use a small fleet.

[Feels]

wanna level up FAST and have as much crew as you want - go to high end zones and look for oportunities to kill steal. For one giant ship you will get more than if you gonna farm the starting zone for 4 hours

[Plavonica]

Originally posted by Draken:

Interesting looking ship. I do have a question though: Why three prisms? Shouldn't two be enough?

The front one steers the beam, and sacrifices itself to the first few shots, the 2nd one is the main focusing one and still fires out the front when the first dies off, the third one is in place of two that will go in once I begin to expand the beam's capacity.

All of the various internal armoring is for creating graduated failure states. I've had half the ship blown apart and still won fights against multiple enemies.